mercury and i are in a dance of the most dangerous kind. how zen can i be as she takes me down notch by notch.

this morning, when noticing the toaster cable was touching the hot toaster, instead of just moving the cable, touched the hot toaster too. with my thumb. it took a second for the agonized thumb cells to raise the full alert in my brain that i was cooking.

some people might not see a thumb as a mercury-in-retrograde related injury, but those people have not observed how i spend 90% of my days, joyfully (and i have been told passionately) texting and emailing and blogging and other things with my two thumbs and my phone. to take out my phone and one thumb in 24 hours is a high level attack. i’ve coaxed the phone back to foggy functionality (a very strange cluster of texts reappeared which i thought were gone forever – birthday messages and love notes. does delete mean nothing anymore?). i need aloe for my thumb, and try as hard as i can, i just haven’t become an aloe-plant-in-the-house kind of girl.

in more serious news, Israel attacked Gaza again the other day. this time they claim to be retaliating for the death of 1 Israeli soldier. when i hear that kind of justification, it reminds me of why collective punishment if addressed in the geneva conventions. it also makes me think that a culture that learns to grieve and restore is what we need right now – vengeance is such a Dark Ages foreign policy.

I’ve been slowly learning more about Gaza, the West Bank, the challenges of a two state solution, and how difficult it is to see what will truly work. it’s hard to imagine that any peace can come out of a situation where fear and weapons have been stirred together with racism and history to such a toxic concoction. the instinct i keep seeing, reading and hearing is to try and untangle the history, find some point of origin that will show who is right and who is wrong. i don’t believe this is possible, it only creates ruts and impasses. there is interpretation and mistakes, that’s history. the only way towards peace is a true commitment from those living now, that they want to end the violence. that commitment has to include that they will hold each others’ pain and burden by listening to each others’ truths, making amends, and moving forward, protecting each other from those in their midst who seek to break the peace.

i dreamt about a book written by two old black men, one a panther, the other part of SNCC, both named victor. It was called “history: written by the victors”.

and a final point: uniforms. i’ve realized that outside of formal uniform-wearing jobs, almost everyone i know still rocks a uniform. roughly the same outfit every day, composed of different parts that fit similarly, creating a uniform silhouette, usually grounded in comfort. lately mine is sweat pants (aka yoga pants), these primary colored v-neck dress-tops from amsterdam, and a trusty sparkly head scarf to hold my energy and mad hatter hair in. its my comfort uniform. this past weekend i got out of uniform and into some cute outfits and boots, and noticed that i hadn’t worn my boots in so long i’d forgotten i needed to resole them.

i WILL break the uniformity of my wardrobe! but not today.